My annoying shoes

Socar Myles

These are my tap-dancing shoes. Please note that I do not tap-dance, nor have I ever. No--these shoes served a much more sinister purpose: annoying folks in grocery shops.

Yes, that's right. These days, I am old and decrepit, and get my groceries delivered. But when I was in my prime, ah, the fun I had with these! I'd click through the turnips and clack throught the peas, treasuring each covert glare and puzzled look that came my way.

One wouldn't get away with that sort of behaviour in Britain, or even in most of North America. But I was living in the north of Sweden back then. In the north of Sweden, there's a rigid anti-stranger code. You don't look at strangers on the bus. You don't talk to strangers in the library. If a stranger falls off her bicycle and becomes pinned underneath it, you do not, under any circumstances, help her. (Really! It happened to me! People were just walking by, pretending I wasn't there. Even the berk whose kid was responsible for the accident ignored my plight completely.)

At any rate, folks in the north of Sweden won't say a word when you clitter through ICA-MAXI in tap shoes. They won't even glare directly at you. All you'll hear is "...mutter, mutter...fan*! ...mutter!" It's terrific fun. It's a spot of revenge, too, on the ones who'd leave a downed cyclist to her fate.

* Fan: the devil (common Swedish cuss-word)

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